This invention relates to lumber processing equipment, more particularly the invention relates to equipment for the automated measuring and further processing of the lumber including sawing and marking.
With rising labor costs and demands for more time and cost efficient construction, it has become desirable to construct building components and modules off-site at specialized fabrication facilities. In manufacturing wood frame walls, especially for prefabricated residential structures, there are great economies in providing automated equipment that can measure, cut, and mark the components utilized in wall frames. Where a particular wall design is repeated over and over, such automated equipment can decrease time of construction and lower costs. The economics are even greater for custom wall designs. For wood structures where the frames are constructed on site, precutting and marking of boards off-site can create a “kit” design minimizing necessary on site sawing and specialized labor.
Known board processing equipment that has any level of automation is mechanically complex and has limitations in capabilities. Moreover, such known equipment for marking and sawing boards requires stopping the board for each marking. Moreover, such equipment has a limited number of marking options. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,685,129 to Jureit, et. al. Said patent is hereby incorporated by reference. Moreover, known board processing equipment has not combined efficient board feeding aspects to the measuring, sawing, and printing functions.
“Board” when used herein refers to elongate pieces of lumber without restriction to size including length. For example, various lengths of 1×1's, 2×2's, 2×4's, 2×10's, etc., all are included in boards. Any lumber pieces which could be used for studs, plates, headers, and trusses are included as boards. Similarly, lengths of linear veneer laminate, oriented strand board, finger joint board, are included in the definition of the boards.